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Ricoh Process Director

Keep your hands on the GUI, not the jobs
The more cooks in the kitchen, the slower things go. And the risk of error goes up. The less your operators have to handle jobs, the higher your efficiency and accuracy. With RICOH® ProcessDirector workflow software, information flows through production smoothly with complete integrity. And, we make sure the information is always accessible and available so you can use it whenever and wherever you need it.

Be a print management superhero
Do you want to increase productivity? Take on new applications? Offer your customers new capabilities? All are possible with RICOH ProcessDirector. It’s ideal for high-volume shops and complex applications because you can onboard new work easily, automate reprints, track every document with 100 percent integrity and create reports for billing or compliance. Plus, the browser-based GUI enables you to view and control everything centrally instead of following jobs on the shop floor.

Ease into automation
Start small or customize RICOH ProcessDirector right away with optional features that build on these base capabilities:

Import work from external systems through LPR, hot folder or mainframe download

Assign a workflow automatically

Preview jobs with the integrated viewer, to check a job or generate a reprint

Manage print queues

Control printer operation

Transform print jobs when necessary

Track jobs from receipt of print files to final delivery

Automate the reprint process

Send customizable email notifications about job and printer events

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Drag-and-drop workflow builder
There’s no need to build workflows from scratch. With RICOH ProcessDirector, you can drag and drop icons to build simple or complex workflows quickly. Visual diagrams represent the flow of jobs through your system. And when you apply conditional logic to automate business decisions, you set up the rules that send jobs through workflow branches automatically. For example, you can drive jobs that are over a set page count to print automatically on continuous feed printers and route smaller jobs to your cutsheet devices. It’s simple, it’s easy, and it saves you time and money.

Document-level print management
After you use logic-based tools to set up the media, finishing, and binding requirements for every document, RICOH ProcessDirector can use this knowledge to further improve productivity. For example, all the documents to be bound can be peeled out of the job and run separately and on a different time table.

Database-driven process control
RICOH ProcessDirector includes an embedded IBM® DB2® database, a powerful engine that lets you grow without adding overhead cost. You don't need any DB2 skills — we handle all of that for you.

Print Services Facility™ (PSF) print driver
Run jobs on Ricoh, third-party and Intelligent Printer Data Stream™ (IPDS™) printers from within RICOH ProcessDirector. A world-class print driver allows you to send jobs reliably to the printer of your choice and take advantage of IPDS' bi-directional communication and robust error recovery.

Access to third-party programs
Include other programs, like composition, page formatting and document manipulation software, in your print workflow process. They can be installed on the RICOH ProcessDirector server or on remote Windows, AIX or Linux servers and controlled easily from within the workflow builder.

Optional Features

New! Archive jobs for months or years and retrieve them easily
Accommodate requirements for long-term file storage. You can archive jobs and their associated index information as a step in workflow, and you can quickly and easily search for a document or job using the indexed properties. After you retrieve a job, you can view it, reprint it by submitting it back into the workflow or take other actions. After jobs that need to be archived are moved out of the active job table, your operators can use their time more efficiently because they're managing fewer files on a day-to-day basis.

New! Enable your production and MIS systems to share information
The Avanti Slingshot Connect feature enables your MIS system to send job and JDF information from the Avanti Slingshot MIS system to RICOH ProcessDirector, which processes it. Thereafter, our software can provide job status related to specific workflow steps, time duration and pages printed to Avanti. By integrating these systems and automating the reporting process, you can use Avanti to track all jobs in a single system, calculate production costs, manage inventory and use Avanti's advanced scheduling tools.

Extract address information
Save time and reduce postal costs with the Postal Enablement feature, which automates a critical early step in your mail workflow. The feature identifies address information in fully composed documents, extracts it and presents it to third-party software postal optimization software for address cleansing, address suppression and sorting. The feature is tested with industry-leading software, but you can use it with postal tools of all types. You can install the feature yourself or ask our Professional Services team to install it as part of a comprehensive automated mail workflow. When the Postal Enablement feature is integrated with RICOH ProcessDirector, the software automatically pulls out address information and puts back corrected address information as steps in workflow.

The Postal Enablement feature comes with a plug-in for Acrobat, so you can mine PDF files and collect address information. RICOH ProcessDirector also works with AFP datastreams. If AFP files are properly formatted, you're good to go. If they're not, just add the AFP Indexer feature along with the Postal Enablement feature.

Verify completion, prove compliance
With piece-level tracking and reporting, you can take on critical communications projects and any other jobs for which you need to verify completion: statements, personalized mail, books, direct mail or marketing collateral, and others. The optional Automated Verification feature works in PDF or Advanced Function Presentation™ (AFP™) workflows, and automates the verification process, which you can monitor and manage through the RICOH ProcessDirector GUI. And because your staff doesn't have to manually find and reprint damaged or missing pieces, you save bundles on labor costs. Here's what Automated Verification does for you:

Adds a unique barcode to each piece

Works with inexpensive bolted-on or standalone hand-held barcode-capable cameras

Leverages the power of the ProcessDirector system, so you don’t need to procure or run a separate system

Scans each piece that moves through your workflow

Reconciles completed and non-completed pieces

Creates a reprint file

Provides a final reconciliation report

Stay on top of deadlines
Deadlines drive your business, and if you miss any, you risk unhappy customers and possible financial penalties. The optional Deadline Tracker feature of RICOH ProcessDirector makes it easy to stay on top of deadlines, based on criteria you set. Because it works closely with RICOH ProcessDirector's workflow builder, Deadline Tracker is able to predict a job's path through a conditional workflow and apply scheduling time only to the steps that will occur.
This means Deadline Tracker can accurately predict two things: when a job is taking longer than expected and when a delay puts the job at risk of missing its deadline.

All status information appears on RICOH ProcessDirector's GUI, so you're able to monitor all of your jobs in one place. Even with rush jobs that interrupt your schedule, Deadline Tracker helps keep your shop running at top efficiency.

Improve multivendor device utilization
Do you have Xerox and Kodak printers? No worries, we treat them like our own Ricoh cutsheet devices. With the optional features that provide cutsheet printer support for Xerox and Kodak printers, you can manage these devices just like you manage Ricoh devices. Functionality includes media selection and finishing operations. You can set up job properties in RICOH ProcessDirector and JDF job tickets (using JDF, XRX and KDK commands if you like) and use these properties to search for and schedule jobs with similar requirements, produce these jobs more efficiently and improve device utilization.

When these devices are managed by our workflow software, you can use any of them for printing or reprinting and to help maintain 100 percent integrity. This is essential for critical communications—documents that must be produced perfectly because they are regulated, customized or personalized.

Streamline mail logistics and apply logic-based finishing
The optional PDF Mailroom Integrity feature helps you manage and control print and mail processes using native Adobe® PDF. You can manage PDF jobs at a document level with tools that include:

Workflow steps that give you a lot of flexibility to split, resequence and group individual documents within a PDF print file. You can achieve 100 percent reprint automation of PDF files without transforms.

Further, with this feature, you can boost efficiency by bringing together data, logic and finishing. Use the RICOH ProcessDirector Acrobat plug-in to set up finishing rules visually. Imagine mining information, such as a recipient’s name or club member status, from a multi-document print job and dynamically setting up the paper on which it prints. Or, what if you could easily find the document boundaries within a print job? Then, for example, if a document is greater than a certain number of pages, direct it to be perfect bound, and direct documents with fewer pages to be stapled. Or, set up subset stapling and logic-based media substitutions based on a sample file, and then automatically apply those rules every time that type of work comes through RICOH ProcessDirector.

Fine tune output management with data insights
The optional Reports feature helps you with capacity planning, production efficiency measurement, and problem determination. Collect data about job events, user actions and printer activity, and generate reports based on the data. Use the supplied standard reports or build customized reports if you prefer.

Index AFP files with ease
The optional AFP Indexer feature lets you create page groups and indexes (named groups and Tag Logical Element structured fields) in Advanced Function Presentation™ (AFP™) files. When you view an AFP file that contains page groups and indexes, you can navigate in the file to find pages containing specific index values. You can also reprint all the pages in one or more page groups.

Add barcodes, make simple edits to AFP documents
Sometimes the AFP datastreams that you receive from mainframe systems or outside customers need minor changes before they can be printed. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to make these changes at the application level. Using the optional AFP Editor feature, you can take AFP datastreams into a visual tool and make changes. For example, create new barcodes and hidden areas so data, like old barcodes, does not print.

Simplify insertion and reconciliation
The optional Inserters feature automates the insertion of printed documents and other inserts, such as marketing materials, into envelopes. You can prepare print jobs for insertion, write and send control files to inserter controllers, receive results files from inserter controllers and interpret them to determine the insert status of each document in the job, and automatically or manually reconcile the job and reprint any damaged documents.

Control and track individual documents
With the optional Manufacturing Optimization feature, you can control and track individual documents within a print job. This expands your document workflow beyond controlling and tracking print jobs. With no application changes, you can change the way the individual documents are processed, using business rules to indicate how they should be processed. For example, you can split documents in the print job into subset print jobs, and sort them based on document-specific information like address data. Or group them into subset print jobs based on data in the document. Without Manufacturing Optimization, the data in an AFP file is all one large unit, so the tasks that you can do with it are limited.

Link print production to composition
Composing documents outside of your print production workflow is limiting. You don’t have a single point of control through which you can manage your work against deadlines and centralize reporting. The optional Designer feature links your workflow to the GMC Inspire composition tool. When composition is linked to workflow, you can control the composition process and know that the workflow steps are happening on time and errors are tracked.

Unite multiple print production sites
The optional Command Center feature provides a combined view of all jobs and assets in multiple locations. You can easily identify bottlenecks and move work from one site to another to better manage deadlines and keep devices busy.

Optional Extended Features: Fine tune output management even more
If you’re looking for even more ways to increase efficiency, lower postal costs and improve print control, we also offer optional extended features of RICOH ProcessDirector that are delivered by our professional services team. Ask your Ricoh production print specialist for more information.